Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of wireless communications and, more particularly, to automatic gain control techniques for detecting radio frequency (RF) saturation.
Wireless local area network (WLAN) devices typically use radio frequency techniques to exchange WLAN signals. A receiving WLAN device typically establishes a stable signal level before beginning WLAN packet reception. An automatic gain control (AGC) unit in the receiving WLAN device adjusts the gain of an RF front end and other processing units during reception of a WLAN packet preamble to enable proper WLAN packet reception. The AGC unit typically adjusts the gain of the RF front end and other processing units based on analyzing the power of a digitized RF signal at the output of an analog to digital converter (ADC).